April is Child Abuse Awareness Month and one young woman has made it her mission to shed light on the issue.
Brittney Blackerby is the founder of Break the Silence, a platform she created while competing in the Miss Arkansas program, that speaks out and brings awareness to child abuse, and is holding the fourth annual Wear Blue Day today.
Wear Blue Day is a very simple act for people to participate in and a great opportunity for people to raise awareness of the issue, she said.
“For example, if everyone at a school, job, organization, etc. wear blue (today), more than likely someone is going to notice and ask ‘Why is everyone wearing blue?’ That is the opportunity for people to open the conversation and talk about child abuse prevention, statistics, warning signs, Break the Silence, and so much more. This can also lead to someone Breaking their Silence and getting the help that they need,” she said.
When asked why she felt she needed to bring awareness to abuse, Blackerby’s answer was simple: it wasn’t talked about enough.
”This is such a taboo subject. A lot of people do not want to talk about child abuse because it makes them uncomfortable or awkward. Although this is an issue that is not brought up in conversation, that is more of a reason to bring it up. The more we act like it is not happening, the more we are not protecting children from it. It is happening every day,” she said.
Blackerby’s passion for the cause stems from a very personal place. Just like so many of those she advocates for, she said she was also a victim of child abuse by someone she should have been able to trust, her teacher.
”I will never forget that night. I walked into the kitchen, mom was washing the dishes and I asked her to come into my room. I needed to break my silence and tell her what had been happening to me,” Blackerby said. “I was 8 years old and for the last six months my third grade teacher had been sexually abusing me. It is unfortunate to go through a trauma like that, but I believe we all have a choice of how we react to what life throws at us. Because of God, I am able to react in a positive manner and be a voice for others.”
Blackerby and her mother, Tammy Harper, worked hard for many years to put her abuser behind bars and while looking for her platform in college to compete in the Miss Arkansas pageant program, she was faced with another victim of child abuse who, unlike Blackerby, had never told anyone her story.
“My sophomore year of college a girl confided in me because she heard me speak about my story. She said that I was the first person she had told and that was when I realized that not every survivor had the same outcome as me,” Blackerby said.”My outcome consisted of loving and supportive friends and family, counselors, fighting to put my abuser behind bars, getting the help that I needed and so much more. Yet I realized, at that moment, that there were so many who were not Breaking their Silence. I recognized that God had blessed me with the boldness, strength and courage to tell my testimony. So I formed Break the Silence to be a voice for others.”
Children are some of the highest at risk to be abused. Forty-four percent of all abuse occurs to those under the age of 18.
According to Childhelp.org, the website for the child abuse hotline, every year more than 3.6 million referrals are made to child protection agencies involving more than 6.6 million children (a referral can include multiple children) and the United States has one of the highest child abuse rates in industrialized nations, losing an average of four to seven children a day to abuse and neglect.
Blackerby went on to describe several indicators that could point to an abusive situation for a child. Some of those include withdrawal from friends or usual activities, changes in behavior, depression, frequent absences from school, reluctance to leave as if he or she doesn’t want to go home, attempts at running away and attempts at suicide.
“Ninety percent of victims know their abuser, which proves that most likely a child is being abused by someone he or she knows,” she said.
If someone is concerned that a child could be in an abusive situation, contact the Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-422-4453. All calls remain anonymous.
Haley Smith can be contacted at 870-862-6611 or at [email protected].